Lose weight successfully: With strategy and strength training

If you train your muscles regularly and intensively, you are doing a lot of things right when it comes to weight management. The fact is: If you want to lose weight, you have to ensure a negative energy balance.

Your body needs energy 24 hours a day. This total daily energy expenditure is measured in kilojoules. How high the daily energy turnover is depends on both the basic and the performance turnover. The basal metabolic rate describes the amount of energy that your body needs when resting, on an empty stomach and at a room temperature of 28 degrees Celsius to maintain vital basic functions – such as heartbeat, breathing, blood circulation, digestion and temperature. It depends on gender and age as well as body size and mass. Since muscle mass makes up the largest proportion of body mass, its influence on energy expenditure is crucial. The power turnover, on the other hand, describes the amount of energy that you generate through physical activity, i. H. it depends on how often and how intensely you are physically active. If you want to lose weight, you generally have to ensure a negative energy balance. The energy balance describes the difference between energy intake and consumption. It is negative when you expend more energy than you take in each day. There are three strategies to achieve this.

Strategy 1: Reduce energy intake

In order to achieve a negative energy balance, you can, on the one hand, reduce the energy consumption. This forces your body to gain the necessary energy from the breakdown of endogenous depots. The problem with such a conventional reduction diet: You risk your body using e.g. uses muscle mass instead of fat deposits. Fatal consequence: Due to the loss of muscle mass, the basal metabolic rate decreases. And that’s exactly what makes it so difficult to keep the weight off permanently after a diet. With a reduced energy turnover, you can consume even less energy than before the diet. If you eat “normally” again, the yo-yo trap snaps shut and you gain weight. With an adequate supply of protein, you reduce the risk of losing muscle and bone mass.

Strategy 2: Increase energy consumption

Another strategy is to ramp up your energy consumption. Through intensive strength training, the basal metabolic rate can be sustainably increased: With each training session, you stimulate the build-up rate of the muscles by up to 72 hours. Both require energy. In other words, you can use the effect of the training and the additional muscle mass generated to increase your daily energy consumption.

In addition, it makes sense to increase performance through physical activity – for example through housework and gardening, brisk walking for half an hour a day, climbing stairs or sports. In general, the more muscle mass you have and the more fully and intensively you use it in physical activities, the higher your total daily energy expenditure.

Strategy 3: Reduce energy intake and increase consumption

In order to achieve the maximum possible effect, it logically makes sense to combine strategy 1 and 2. Strength training – in combination with a protein-rich diet – is the most important measure to prevent the loss of fat-free body mass or to promote the build-up of muscle mass and thus to ensure a high level of energy consumption over the long term.

Measurement of body composition

More muscle, that’s the goal. The bioelectrical impedance analysis, BIA for short, provides you with visible success. The analysis system provides information about the distribution of your muscle and fat mass.